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Harmony360
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Mentor comment: Harmony360 original post violated our rules. The new wording is mine. D H
So, why there are 360 degress in a circle?
So, why there are 360 degress in a circle?
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SteveL27 said:There are 360 degrees in a circle for historical reasons. It's entirely arbitrary. You could use any number at all. You could say there are 2pi radians in a circle and everything would work out the same. Perhaps 360 was chosen because it's more or less the number of days in the year, and 360 has a lot of divisors.
I didn't follow the details of your chart, but it looks like some kind of cranky mysticism. There is no fundamental reason for dividing a circle into 360 parts, any more than there's anything meaningful than saying there are 12 inches in a foot.
The concept of 360 degrees in a circle dates back to ancient civilizations such as the Babylonians and Egyptians. They divided the year into 360 days and used this number as a basis for measuring angles.
The number 360 was chosen because it has many divisors, making it easier to divide into smaller units. This made it convenient for early astronomers and mathematicians to use in their calculations.
Degrees were chosen as a unit of measurement because they are based on the number 360, which was already being used in many ancient civilizations. It was also a common unit of measurement for dividing a circle into smaller angles.
Technically, the number of degrees in a circle can be changed, but it would require a significant shift in the way we measure angles and would likely cause confusion and difficulty in the fields of mathematics and science.
Yes, there are other units for measuring angles such as radians and gradians. Radians are commonly used in mathematics and physics, while gradians (also known as grads) are used in surveying and navigation. However, degrees remain the most commonly used unit for measuring angles.